How to Thrive Through Tough Times in Your Small Business

Even if you start your small business at a time when the economy is booming, unexpected events could lead to a downturn. It's important to be able to weather those downturns if you want to be around for the long term, and the tips below can help you do that.

Have the Tools You Need

Did you ever work at a place where everything seemed to be held together, figuratively speaking, with wire and tape? Was it a place where nobody ever really had exactly what they needed to do their job, but they used their ingenuity to muddle through? Many businesses operate exactly like this, and they might look fine if somewhat inefficient for a while. The problem occurs when there is any pressure. Those barely held together systems can start to fall apart under strain or if one thing goes wrong.

It's much better to have the tools needed to do the job. This means that if you have a fleet, you need vehicle tracking devices. Fleet telematics can act as a complete vehicle management solution that automate much of the paperwork and analysis and allow the fleet manager to focus on other elements of the job. If times get lean, these tools are particularly useful in figuring out how to operate more efficiently.

Have Insurance

The type of insurance that you need will vary based on the nature of your business and where you are located, but in general, the more insurance you have, the better. Beyond a basic policy that covers the physical business and equipment, you may want general liability insurance, professional liability insurance and even cyber liability insurance, which can protect you if you deal with sensitive data and are at risk of cyber-attacks. Business interruption insurance can protect you if you have to close your doors for a period of time as a result of a disaster such as a fire. Find out what else is available in your area, and purchase whatever you think you need.

Make Crisis Plans

You can't anticipate every single thing that might go wrong, and you'd use up all your time and energy doing so. At the same time, you should think through both the likely and the more unlikely events and work on plans to respond, whether those events are flooding, loss of a key employee, reputational damage, bad storms, earthquakes and more. Succession planning should be a part of this as well, in which you choose someone to take over for you if you suddenly become incapacitated or worse.

You should have contingency plans for less dramatic situations as well. What would you do on a day if half your employees called in sick? What about if you hit a sudden cash flow problem? How will you handle a bad review online? Crisis planning will not only help you deal with these problems better if they do arise; it will also allow you to put policies and procedures into place for employees to follow to reduce the likelihood of compounding errors.